Week 32 (December 26, 2016)

(It was really exciting to talk with Jayden Christmas day.  He seemed very happy and looks to be doing well.  Thanks all for your continual prayers in his behalf.  his Spanish is doing very well too.  Gary)

Okay so it was so great to talk to my family for the week!! I miss and love you all! Sorry my $8 web cam wasn't the best but it was better than nothing! 

This week was just a lot of Christmas stuff and service. My comp and I went and cleaned the church on Christmas eve so the guy that normally does it wouldn't have to. It was good. 

Also on Sunday we had 2 baptisms. it was way good! Lots of pictures! Probably not a better way to spend Christmas than in the baptismal font! For them and for me!!! 

I also included a photo of the owners son and the food we got for Christmas eve from them. They are super cool and act like we are family here in our apartment building. 

I put on here also the photo of the Christmas tree I drew. that is what we used for Christmas. It has the 4 presents under it for the Hermana's and my comp and I. 

There are a lot of photos from the baptism, Ramiro is 12 and Sophia is 16. Their older siblings are members and they didn't even show up to their baptism. The sister had two friends who came and I think they will be investigators later, it will be sweet!! 

Also there is a photo of my room. My bed is soaking wet because I left the window open when we left and it rained. The same goes for my desk. Which is a mess as of like yesterday. 

Anyways that's about it for the week. Lots of fun, and baptisms are always great!!

Anyways love you and miss you!

Elder Hamblin 

Week 31 (Dec. 21, 2016)

Hey sorry, Monday was absolutely insane and we got a lot done but computer time was not included in that. Sorry!! Anyway this week and last have been great. We are going to have our baptism this Sunday after church, which will push the Skype time back a bit which is fine. 

Anyway today we had our Christmas activity in the city, it was good. I got a new key chain as a present. We sang a lot of songs and that was about it. It was good to have a little Christmas tho. 

I have to keep this short, but I got your Christmas package, I am waiting for Christmas to open it!! Also I cant wait to Skype!!!!! 

Attached are photos! Got to go!!

Love you all!!

Elder Hamblin

Week 30 (Dec. 12, 2016)

Well I have officially hit the 7 month mark. It feels like it has gone really fast, yet at the same time it is taking forever!!! Also last Tuesday was mothers day in Panama so happy mothers day. My comp and I both gave a gift to our mother in the mission. Her name is Hermana Alicia. She is from Peru, and was inactive until we started visiting her. Now she goes to church every week, and gives us dinner on Tuesdays! We also helped her put up her Christmas lights!! We hung one strand on her window, and one in front of her front door, and that was it. We cant hang anything from the room because here we have rain not snow and that will ruin the lights. Her house looks pretty cool tho now. 

This week we had 3 investigators come to church!! Finally!! One of them has a baptismal date for December 29th. and her two younger siblings want to be baptized on Christmas!!!! The siblings are probably the smartest and best investigators we have had yet. They ask so many good questions and make sure that they really understand the principles we teach which is so great! It is so hard to teach someone who doesn't ask questions. I really do want them to be baptized on Christmas!! That would be so awesome! Best Christmas present ever, for everybody!!! 

This week I learned something about Panama. If the expiration date says the 12th, it really means two days before whatever it says. Most of the food that I bought, my milk, bread, and even a box of cereal went bad. I couldn't believe it. My milk went bad, actually it tasted bad the whole time that I had it. But still, milk. 

This week I will have divisions with my district leader. It will be the first time in my mission I will be with another elder who is from the united states. 😀it will be weird to see if we can both understand everything in Spanish, because even now, I still get a little lost. Latinos talk a ton, so when they talk for like 5 minutes straight I kind of just zone out and don't listen or understand anything. Its hard, so we will see how things go with another gringo. 

Also I finally got your Thanksgiving package, as well as your Christmas package. I love them both! I have enough of the Christmas ones left to open one a day until Christmas Eve, then for Christmas we can just talk in person. Also I don't know where that will be, or how, I am still working out the details, but I'm pretty sure the church will be available as well as I have the computer in the apartment building if everything falls through. The problem is that I don't know if I can Skype on the apartment computer, it is really old. But that isn't a big deal, we have the church to use. 

I think that's about it for my week. I got sick again. Actually I am still sick. I have like a cold or something but my nose is constantly runny and my throat has so much mucus in it I have a hard time breathing! Its crazy! I never got sick like this at home. Something about always being hot, and somehow I caught a cold!!!! 

Anyway love and miss you all!! Enjoy the cold, and I will soak up some heat for all of you!! Les quiero mucho!!!!

Elder Hamblin 

Week 29 (Dec. 5, 2016)

So this week was a bit interesting. 

Monday my comp got sick. Chills and fever and just not doing good. So i gave him a blessing and we just stayed home all night. 

Tuesday he was still sick but we went to district meeting. Big mistake. Comp was still sick and got another elder there sick. So we went home and he slept the whole day. 

Wednesday my comp woke up feeling great but i was sick. So we stayed home the entire day. 

Thursday i thought i was feeling better so we left the house and we got to the corner and i threw up and so we went back home again. I took some medicine and slept a lot and didn't eat and felt better by the night. 

Friday we went out to our usual trip to Anton. Lots of investigators out there, but its a toss up if they are home or not. We ended up just teaching 3 lessons that day but they were all really good. 

Saturday we had some problems with people being busy so it was hard to get in. We went to a family that wasn't really progressing and i thought to myself, if they are home and don't accept the lesson I will not come back to this house. So we went, they were home, we asked if we could teach, and the lady told us that she is attending 2 churches every Sunday, and she has a preacher she likes, and she doesn't want to have us come over anymore. Nothing more we can do about that. As we walked away i told my comp, she is attending 2 different churches. Yet there are only 2 churches in the world. The church of god and the church of the devil. She had a 50/50 chance to get it right and she messed it up with both of her options. So she is now an inside joke with me and my comp. 

Sunday was changes. Well for everybody else. My comp is going to be staying here for one more change and I think that it will be good to have him here one more. 

Also, last night I called Elder Romero, who is one of my best friends here in the mission to see if he got changed. He answered the phone and didn't know who I was. He kept guessing people and all of them were Latinos. He was so surprised that I spoke such good Spanish. He had no idea that I could even speak Spanish because every time I am with him we just speak in English. Also I learned that his comp, who was in the MTC with me, is coming to my district and will be our district leader. So that is way sweet! 

Other things that happened this week. Lately we have been getting cancelled on for dinner a lot so me and my comp have to fend for ourselves. He likes going to KFC across the street but I hate eating fast food here. So what I did

 
is I make Arepas. They are a food from Venezuela that is like a corn tortilla, and you fill it with tuna and some spices. Well Tuna here for the good stuff is like $2, so I bought the cheapest that I could, and I bought some sardines and I mix it all together with mayonnaise and my comp thinks I'm crazy but it is delicious. I will put the directions at the end of this letter and some photo's.

And yeah that pretty much sums up the week. Not a whole lot because of being sick, but the next week should be good because we get to make up for all of the missed lessons for this week!! 

Also huge shout out to anyone that emailed me this week! I love getting emails and this week was a real pick me up on the email side of things so thanks for that!!!

Anyways, love and miss you all!!! Have fun in the snow!! It isn't even Christmas here except for the Christmas music in the grocery store. And also I found eggnog once in the store so that was pretty sweet!!! Its just gross that in Spanish they call it ponche de jeuvos, which is just like egg punch, like a fruit punch of eggs. Kind of grossed me out but it tasted delicious. They only had it once because we went to the store today and I couldn't find it. Sad day. 

Once again love and miss you!!

Elder Hamblin 

Week 28 (Nov. 28, 2016)

So we have a hurricane here. Hurricane Otto. It absolutely destroyed part of my area. Luckily my area is gigantic, it stretches from the north coast to the south coast, So really it has just raining a lot and also been extremely hot in between storms. The clouds are trapping in all the heat so thank goodness for the rain. 

This week we had divisions on Wednesday, I went with Elder Irias. He is from Honduras and is super cool. We went to a bunch of investigators and then we found a bunch more. We went to one of our progressing investigators and she was all prepared for her baptism and then Friday we get a text that she wants to wait and she isn't ready right now. And now she wont answer our calls or her door when we go to her house. 

We found another group of people to teach out in Anton. the problem with Anton is it is about an hour from the church and costs 1.30 to get to the church from there. And apparently there are many better things that spending a dollar and thirty cents than to go to church. The president of our branch promised us if we get 5 worthy men baptized who live in Anton then we will have a church down there. So as of right now we are working for that. we currently have 0 worthy men who are even investigating the church. We did find a family of girls and one boy who live there and are really interested. We teach them twice a week and they read their book of Mormons every time we ask them to, they just wont go to church. 

Also changes are coming up this next Sunday. My comp wants to stay in the area here, I don't think he will but he wants to. He wrote a huge long email to the president asking to stay here for one more change. I don't know if he will or not tho. I think that he will be sent to somewhere in the city and I will get another new companion to train. Or I will get a really old missionary who is close to going home and then the next change I will train. That is what the district leader told me. I'm not 100% sure he knows what he is talking about tho. 

Also happy thanksgiving and black Friday. We had some pretty huge sales here for black Friday. One store actually stayed opened past 7!!! It was insane! I don't think anyone went shopping there but it was still open! 

Everybody here is getting ready for Christmas. It is really weird because it is so hot here it still just feels like summer. I don't know why but Christmas cant be hot. It just isn't right! So good luck to everyone dealing with the snow. I am slightly jealous of you but not really. 

Also I have really bad luck with bathrooms here. In my first area our toilet didn't have water hooked up to it. Then we moved and our shower didn't work. Then I got changed to Penonome and our shower didn't work all the time and our toilet was really hard to flush. (like worse than grandma Margarets!!) Then we moved to this new house and we have hot water, but my comp always uses it all in his shower and I'm not left with much. And the drain in the shower doesn't work very well so there is water below us in the hallway and the owners make us use another shower. So we now have to shower in a different apartment room. Luckily of the 8 apartments in our building only 4 are occupied and we are the only ones on our floor. So party in our place!!! 

Also last night when we were walking home from our last lesson we walked past the local gym and there was this huge basketball game going on. So we went over to look through one of the windows and a guy came up to us and gave us free tickets!! So we went in and watched the last 10 minutes of the game. It was fun to watch, they weren't very good, especially for being the all star teams of Panama. The city versus the outskirts. I don't even know who won. I think the city did. All I know is that before my mission I was definitely good enough to play with those guys. 

And yeah that about sums it up. Lots of rain, and lots of food. And sorry no photos this week. my camera didn't even leave the house. 

Anyways miss you all! have fun in the snow!

Elder Hamblin 

Week 27 (Nov. 21, 2016)

So i have no idea when thanksgiving is I just know that it is soon. So happy thanksgiving to you all!! 

This week we had a bit of success. We got a reference who wanted a book of Mormon in Spanish and then told us he would call us if he wanted to learn more. My comp told me he will call before tomorrow. 

We have a sweet family out in Anton which is the area we want to put a new ward in. There are 2 members in the family. 17 year old Bilma and 15 year old Rodrigo.  Then they have like 6 other siblings and their parents who are investigators. The parents have no interest but are fine with their kids listening, the family is super cool! Today in the morning we went on a hike up this huge hill in the rain. It was so sweet!! Pictures will be attached! 

Also we have a lady with a baptismal date for this coming Saturday! She finally was able to find someone to take care of her mom for a few hours and make it to church. She is super excited to be a member. She tells us she isn't ready but then we just tell her she was prepared before we talked to her and that part of enduring to the end is learning more about the church. After we told her that she was ready to go through with whatever. 

At the mission conference I was able to pick up my quadruple in Spanish. It is sweet! I love having all of the scriptures with me at all times as well as having it so compact. If I wanted that before it took up so much space. It is so much easier now. Pictures attached. 

And yeah that's my week. Pretty simple. 

Next week will just be a bunch of meetings. 

Love you all!! Happy Thanksgiving!! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 26 (Nov. 14, 2016)

Okay so this week was pretty crazy. On Tuesday we had divisions with our district leader and rather than dividing for divisions we all stayed together for the entire day. Then rather than teaching we just did whatever the district leader wanted. It was really a wasted day. After a while, I had had enough of them and told my comp we were going home because we were wasting so much time there. I am still mad we lost that entire day of teaching. 

Wednesday we had zone meeting in Chitre so that kind of killed our whole day too. It takes so long to get to Chitre. 

Thursday we did service in the morning. We helped a less active lady paint the outside of her house. It took forever because we had to use steel wool to scratch the paint that was already there off the wall, then repaint it. After service there was an activity at the church and we got to eat lots of Panamanian food and we got to watch some of their traditional dances. The activity was super boring but the good thing is that we had lots of less actives show up. Like a ton of them. 

Friday we went to Anton. Its a part in our area that is like 30 minutes away and we have zero members there. So we took members of our ward and went on divisions to teach. My comp this time was a 15 year old kid, the son of the branch president, he made sure that we talked to everyone and that every door that was open we went and talked to. There was one time we were walking past a guy on the street and he told me to talk to him, I told him, "its your turn I have talked to everyone" but he just looked at me and said no. Then he said he was scared! so I contacted the guy and showed him how to do it. I made him contact people after that and lets just say this kid will make a great missionary! I don't think when I was 15 I would have ever made divisions with missionaries!! 

Saturday I was sick, something wrong with my stomach. We didn't leave the house for anything. 

Sunday I was doing better and we went up to Chitre for District Conference. Its like stake conference but we aren't a stake yet. We talked about all of the steps we need to take to become a stake here in Chitre. They pretty much called everyone to repentance and said that they need to pay tithing and invite their neighbor to church because our attendance is at like 20 percent. So hopefully we can get that up and become a stake soon. We have lots of members, just nobody goes to church. 

And that is my week. We have a baptismal date for the next Saturday but if she doesn't go to church we wont have her baptized. This Wednesday we have another mission conference in the city, that means some good insight about how to be a better missionary and a whole day without teaching. Makes

it hard to teach a lot when we are so busy learning how to teach.

Anyway love you all!!! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 25 (November 07, 2016)

Wow what a week we had. We got a lot done this week. We moved to a new apartment, it is awesome!! I took my first hot shower in the mission field!! We actually have hot water here in this area!! Hopefully I will be here for a few more changes!! 

On Friday we went to a little town in our area called Anton. They don't have a church down there so they are technically in our area, even if it is an hour away. We went with 6 members. Me and my comp split up with two older guys, and the sisters split up with their wives. My temporary comp was this super old dude with Parkinson's. He walked so slow! And we could only walk for 2 hours and then we had to stop teaching. But we were able to get in 3 solid lessons in that time. I had to teach the whole time which was fine though, my Spanish is doing great. We should be going back there this Friday as well. 

On Saturday morning we got a call from our baptismal candidate that he was sick. I told my comp that he wasn't and that we still needed to show up and have him interviewed. So we did. He wasn't sick and passed his interview, turns out he is afraid of water. It was fine tho, the branch president talked to him in private right before his baptism and all went well. Sunday he was confirmed and in one year he will be able to go to the temple with his wife and son who were baptized like 2 months ago. It is good to see a family being put together through the gospel. 

I have pictures of all of this but my camera is being stupid right now and wont work. I don't know, I'll try to figure it out. 

And yeah. that was our week. Love you all!!! Miss you all!! Finally have 6 months in the mission!!! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 24 (October 31, 2016)

Happy Halloween!!!

Today we had p-day jin chitre, which is super far from where we live! But we got to play soccer for like 4 hours today! 

This week we did like no teaching! But it was still a great week. 

On Tuesday we went and taught for a while in the rain. 

On Wednesday we had lunch with the president of the branch who lives like way far away so we went the hour and a half drive to eat, and talk about the branch, then we had to wait forever for a bus, then we got back really late, and we had a meeting in the church for something. 

On Thursday  we had a zone meeting in chitre. so that took up our whole day to get there, have the meeting, and return. So nothing got done that day. 

On Friday we went to the city and listened to the Apostle Dallin H Oaks. That was sweet! I got to shake his hand! then he gave a talk in English, and then left. Pictures attached at the temple. He talked about how to be a better missionary. 

On Saturday our baptism fell through, but the sisters did have one. We should have one next week tho!! Pictures also attached. 

And yeah that is the week. Pretty packed! Very busy!! And not a whole lot of lessons!! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 23 (Oct. 24, 2016)

Changes were yesterday and just as I thought me and my comp are still together which is just fine with me. We get along pretty great and I don't know the area yet. This week we did a ton of teaching, we had 16 lessons with a member present and hopefully can keep it up this week. Me and my comp talked with some members and we are going to make divisions every Sunday after church with some members to go out separate and reach more people. 

Yesterday we had a rescate, this means that most of the missionaries in our zone come and we go out with members to visit all of the less active people. We had 15 missionaries there. We taught something like 55 lessons between all of us. It was super sweet! I went out with the president of our branch and we met with 3 less active families as well as a family of 7 investigators. We invited them to pray and to attend church the next week, as well as to the church activity this Thursday. It should be super sweet if all of them show up! 

This week also we changed a baptismal date from November 5th to October 30th. So we should have that baptism this Saturday! Also the sister missionaries here will have one as well and their baptismal candidate wants me to do the ordinance. She is a 10 year old girl who I have never even met. I don't know why she picked me but it is super cool!! I'm excited to do it! Baptizing is way cool! And it is so much easier than confirming in Spanish!!!  

Anyway that was about my whole week!! I didn't take any pictures this week but I'm hoping to remember to take some this coming week!! Anyway love and miss you all!! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 22 (Oct. 17, 2016)

This week went pretty great. We got a call on Tuesday that we need to move, I'm not too mad about that, the only problem is that the owner of our little room we live in is a 75 year old lady that loves having the missionaries and she has done nothing but cry this whole week, its super hard because she lives totally alone. We should be moving sometime this week however. We already have a couple options for houses that are much better than the little room we live in now. 

As for the mission work we have lots of progressing investigators. We have a few baptismal dates coming up that we should baptize soon. We found a new investigator this week named Hna. Digna. She is super cool. shes like 40 years old and we went to dominoes the other day and got pizza. This was before we had even taught her. Then we taught her the restoration and gave her 3 book of Mormons. One in English because she wants to learn in. And two in Spanish because she can give one to her mom. She was raised Catholic but she doesn't believe it because the Catholics worship idols like the Virgin Mary and so she doesn't want to be a part of it. She seemed super open to the gospel of Jesus Christ and hopefully we should put a baptismal date with her sometime this week.

This week we also had a huge service project. The whole branch got together along with all the missionaries in the zone and we went out and just picked up garbage. It was super cool. The members picked up the garbage and the missionaries just talked to all the people who were staring and looking at us. Just me and my companion talked and gave a card to 70 different people. Hopefully some of them will call us or come to church or something sometime too. As for the city it is already a mess again. The people here are so dirty its disgusting. There is garbage everywhere!! 

This week in church I had to give a talk on missionary work and how the members can help us. It was like 10 minutes long, and I was asked to give it the day before. Its all in Spanish so I will try to translate it. 

Good morning brothers and sisters. I am Elder Hamblin, I am from the United States and I am a gringo. I have 3 months here in Panama. Before my mission my dad told me that I need to start every talk with a joke or a lie, so brothers and sisters I am grateful for this opportunity to address you.  Well President Pinzon asked me to talk about the mission work and and the need for member missionary work. I want to share a couple scripture with you the first being D&C 4, verses 3 and 4.  

3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;

4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo,he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul; This Scripture says, if you want to serve, you are called, and you will receive blessings for your service. The second scripture is in the bible in the book of mark. Chapter 16 verse 15 says  15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.  This verse is very simple. it says we need to preach. I am here in the mission. I am working. I am preaching. What are you doing? Now this is kinda harsh. I am a full time missionary, this is my calling. But all of you have a calling to teach as well. Your calling is a bit different though. 

I then told the story of how Alma had to find Amulek to teach and that the members need to be like Amulek, help the missionaries in their work. Together with missionaries to visit less actives and new members and give references to the missionaries. It was super cool! There were also a bunch of jokes in it but they aren't as funny in English. We got 2 references that same day. It was sweet!! the story of Alma is Alma chapter 8. 

  

Okay as for the photos. I officially have 5 months in the mission so my comp bought me a candle to put on my dinner. Also I got your letter like 2 weeks ago and I totally forgot to let you know. but I have it and I loved it!! And yeah that was my week. pretty good if you ask me, and this next week should be even better!! I'm excited for what this area has to bring! Love and miss you all! 

Elder Hamblin 

Week 21 (Oct. 10, 2016)

Okay so I got a call Monday while I was emailing that i was being transferred to a different zone. Something happened in their zone and a missionary had to be taken out of there and they decided to put me in. So I went to the office on Tuesday and talked with the secretaries and assistants and the president and all was good. Then I sat in the office for 3 days just waiting to be told to go to my new area. I had to take a bus for 4 hours all by myself, that was pretty fun. I got to see the canal, sort of, it was really dark and there were no boats or anything but I saw some water. After my 4 hour travel I met my new comp. He is super cool, his name is Elder Franco and he is from El Salvador and has only 2 months in the mission. He speaks basically no English but he wants to work on it and get better. So every day we have been practicing out of his little English textbook. Its pretty fun to see him progress and see what he knows. He knows a lot of English but is really shy to say any of it. 

So as for my area I am in Zona Chitre in the area of Penonome 1. We split a branch with the sisters out here. The branch is huge! We have like 120 people at church every week and at first i didnt believe it but then yesterday at church it was true! There are so many people there we dont even all fit in the chapel!! 

The sisters that we split the ward with are super cool! Both of them are from Utah (. One of them has 10 months in the mission and speaks really good Spanish and the other one has 2 months in the mission and speaks practically no Spanish. As for me we were having dinner with a member last night and the member told me "wow your Spanish is really good! Are you fluent?" I was so surprised. I never realized how good my Spanish actually was. But i guess it is really good because me and my comp can communicate without any problems. 

I also really love the people here and I think they already like me. So while i was in the office for 3 days me and the secretaries learned a bunch of stupid little magic tricks. So i showed all the people in our little branch and they were freaking out about it!! all of the little kids love it!! When one of the ladies in the ward found out how I made the coin disappear she called me a liar and kept telling me I lied and it was so funny! Also in  the ward someone came to the conclusion that I look like Ken Barbie so they call me Ken now. It is not amusing!! 

As for the mission work here it should be progressing a lot soon. We had 2 investigators attend church yesterday as well as we have been visiting some less actives. We just need a couple of investigators to get married and then we can baptize them. they come to church a lot and have testimonies, just need to be married. I think that should happen sometime in the next month! Anyways I'm super excited for my future time in this area as well as in this branch. We will hopefully become a stake and then we can be a full on ward soon!!! Everyone in the branch is working hard to get everyone to come to church so that we can get the numbers for it all to happen!! Im super excited!! 

Anyway thats my very exciting week!! Finally had some stuff happen!! 

Love you all!! 

Elder Hamblin

Week 20 (Oct 03, 2016)

What a week. Or at least what a weekend. I loved conference. I was able to listen to most of it in English actually. I absolutely loved it. The whole thing was an answer to my prayers. We as missionaries all went to the stake center here and watched all 5 sessions. I loved the Sunday sessions the  most though. We did have an investigator come to conference on Sunday with us. She has a baptismal date for next Saturday.

Friday I went to the doctor for my ear again. She said that everything looks good and I shouldn't have to go back.

Actually I do have a pretty good story that happened this week. We were in our house and it was raining. So we thought we would wait out the rain. We waited an hour and then just figured it was light enough rain to use umbrellas. We got tho the bus station and it was a downpour. We got on the bus and then when we got to our stop it was absolutely pouring. So we put our umbrellas down and just sprinted for the house. When we got to the road to turn the road had about 3 inches of running water coming down it. It was crazy! It was also the only way to get to their house. So my comp went running through it first, then i went. When i was about halfway up our cell phone fell out of my shirt pocket and into the river/road. Luckily my comp saw and it we ran back and grabbed it. It was soaked. Then when we got to our lunch appointment they weren't even home!! So we went to our back up lunch and had to eat on the porch because we were both absolutely soaking wet!! It was actually pretty fun!! 

Other than that it was a pretty boring week. Our family home evening fell through. Not surprised by that though, she didn't want to come to conference with us either.

And yeah. that's it. Really boring. And I don't have my camera with me so no pictures. Lo siento.

Elder Hamblin 

Week 19 (Sept. 26, 2016)

Esta semana era muy duro, pero muy chevere también. Martes nosotros no hicimos nada. (This week was very hard, but so cool too. Tuesday we did nothing)

Miércoles fue conferencia de zona con presidente Current. El nos dijo que él nos amó. Yo creo que nos ama. Nuestro presidente es un hombre muy increíble y poderoso! El es como un machete! El Miércoles nos dieron el permiso para mudar. (Wednesday was zone conference with President Current. He told us he loved us. I think he loves us. Our president is a very amazing and powerful man! He is like a machete! On Wednesday they gave us permission to move.)....When asked why he is like a Machete Jayden said it was because he is cutting down all the disobedient elders and sending them home.

Jueves nos mudamos. La actividad se llevó todo la día. Pero nuestro nuevo casa es mucho mas mejor! Fotos seguirá. (Thursday we moved. The activity took all the day. But our new house is much better! Photos will follow.)

Viernes. Yo tenia una infección en mi oreja. Entonces nos fuimos a la ciudad por la doctora. Yo recibí mi medicina y regresamos la casa. Una mal día. (Friday. I had an infection in my ear. Then we went to the city by the doctor. I received my medicine and returned home. A bad day.)

Sábado nos quedó en nuestro casa por toda la día. (Saturday left us in our house throughout the day.)

Domingo teníamos que trabajar duro porque no tuvimos lecciones por la semana. Nosotros enseñábamos un montón de lecciones el domingo. Lo mismo de ambos de los otro elderes tenían por todo de la semana. Muy increíble. Nosotros también hicimos una cita para noche de familia por esta semana. Estoy animado por eso! )Sunday we had to work hard because we had lessons per week. We taught a lot of lessons on Sunday. The same for both of the other elders had all week. Very incredible. We also made an appointment for family night for this week. I am encouraged by it!)

In English I will also add a story. We went and visited an investigator who we hadn't seen in 2 weeks. When we entered her house she began to cry. She missed the spirit that we brought to her house and she missed hearing about the gospel. We told her we would come back more often. Then we set up the family night for her to attend this Thursday. I want her to attend church and start to love the members in our ward. Then she can have that special spirit with her all the time. 

So overall it was a really bad teaching week so we made it up Sunday. This coming week should be incredible! 

Elder Hamblin

Week 18 (Sept. 12, 2016)

Sorry for the delay in posting by a week, I was out of town on business and it took a bit to catch up (Gary)

So we got a call on Sunday instead of on Monday this week. Changes happened today instead of on Wednesday. My comp is currently in Tocumen, a different zone that had major problems with obedience and 5 elders got sent home. Crazy.... My new companion is Elder P. He is from the island of Tonga! He speaks English, Spanish, and Tongan. He is super cool! I've been told that he works super hard which is exactly what I want for a companion. Also they closed down an area next to ours so we might go live in their house from now on. It is a little bit better than our little dump of a house! 

More exciting news! We had 3 baptisms in our last week of the change. Pictures attached. It was a great baptismal service. I had the opportunity to conduct the meeting. The girl is 10 and was baptized by her mom´s boyfriend. The taller boy is the mom´s brother, he is 14 and the other boy is 12.  Both the boys were baptized by my companion, then I had the opportunity to confirm one of them. It was super hard to do in Spanish because it is a lot of words to say as well as giving a blessing in Spanish is much different than just simply talking. It was a good experience though. 

The coming weeks should be fun. We have a few progressing investigators that should be baptized here in a couple weeks. As well as lots of recent converts to teach. Should be a great 6 weeks. I am excited to see what we have in store! I look forward to working hard and being able to talk in English a little to better my Spanish!! Love you all!! 

Elder Hamblin!! 

Week 19 (Sept. 19, 2016)

Esta semana fue muy divertido! Mi nuevo compañero es muy genial. El y yo nos divertimos y trabajamos muy duro! Tendremos un servicio bautismal esta Sábado. Tenemos mucho investigadores con quien nosotros necesitamos trabajar, y también nosotros tenemos mucho meno activos en nuestro barrio. Está mucha obra pero es la obra de al señor. Mi español esta mucho mejor y puedo entender mucho mas. El miércoles pasado yo enseñó una lección en todo con solo un poco ayuda de mi compañero. Fue muy difícil pero muy genial también. 

Yo no tengo fotos esta semana, lo siento. Tal vez mañana podré tomar. Lo siento por esta correo todo en español pero yo quiero trabajar en mi español. Esto es solo una manera que yo puedo mejor me español. Ustedes pueden traducir con Google. jajaja! 

Pues les amo!! Tengan una buena semana!! 

Elder Hamblin 

This week was great fun! My new partner is very great. He and I had fun and work hard! We will have a baptismal service this Sunday. We have a lot of investigators with whom we need to work, and we have a lot more active in our neighborhood. Is a lot of work but it is the work of the Lord. My Spanish is much better and I can understand more. Last Wednesday I taught a lesson in all with just a little help from my partner. It was very difficult but very cool too.

I have no photos this week, sorry. Maybe tomorrow I can take. Sorry for this mail all in Spanish but I want to work on my Spanish. This is just a way that I can better my Spanish. You can translate it with Google. Hahaha!

Well, I love you !! Have a great week !!


Elder Hamblin

Week 17 (Sept. 05, 2016)

Hola familia! it was a good week out here in the ghetto. We taught a record high number of lessons between me and my comp. We didn't have any baptisms this week, but we worked hard and will have 4 next week!! Me and my comp call the area "the mine" because there are so many investigators who live on the top of the mountain. Its pretty great. The other night one of them, a 10 year old non member told me that she wants to serve a mission when she gets older. SHE HASN'T EVEN BEEN BAPTIZED YET!!!! It is incredible how the lord will prepare people to be taught! 

Overall this week was pretty boring in terms of crazy things. We for reals just taught a lot of lessons!

I need recipes please. Fudge, meatloaf, poop cookies, German pancakes. thanks!! we can cook at a family that has an oven, its pretty easy and one of them asked for meatloaf.

Love you all!! Talk to you next week!! 

Jayden

Week 16 (August 29,2016)

Okay so last Tuesday we hiked up the mountain in our area to teach a lesson to the investigator who we think will be baptized lately. We talked to her and she believes the church and wants to baptized and all is well. So Wednesday we went back to teach her another lesson and we changed her baptismal date to August 27th. Yes, that means that on Saturday she was baptized. I got to do the baptism, totally in Spanish, and one of her friends husband did the confirmation. It was crazy sweet to do!! She really was truly prepared by God to receive the lessons. It was way awesome!! I have pictures attached, it was such a cool service and experience. 

We also have another baptism lined up for the 10th of September with another girl from the mountain. My comp refers to it as the gold mine now because we have so many investigators who live up there. I hate climbing it but it is totally worth it to teach all of our lessons. We climb it once a day at least, even if we just teach one lesson on top. Its worth the sacrifice. Our next baptism will be with the daughter friend of the girl we just baptized. She is also the primary presidents daughter, she couldn't get permission from her father for the baptism but now she doesn't live with him anymore so we can baptize her, should be a super easy baptism. When we teach her the lessons she knows all the answers to the questions, she is only 10 and has basically been a member without being baptized her whole life. 

The last thing that happened this week was we had dinner with a family or more like a feast. They just had an assortment of things to eat and it all tasted so good. I don't even know what most of it was, I pretty much just put it on my plate and ate it. pictures attached as well. The short Elder is our district leader, my comp is the chunky one, the one in the glasses is Elder P, he loves to play basketball and he speaks English with me to try to get better. he is pretty cool. 

And yeah. that is it, overall an incredible week. BTW, the ear is all better.

Love you all!! bye!! Jayden

Week 15 (August 22, 2016)

Okay, went to the doctor on Saturday. That was an event. I was expecting to pay a lot of money for a checkup, turns out the doctor lady only charges one dollar for every checkup and didn't even make me pay because I was a missionary and taught her things in English, as well as shared things about our church. So that was pretty cool. But what she told me is that in my ear I have a fungal infection. Which in English doesn't sound very cool but in Spanish the only way to say it is "tengo ongos en mi oreja" which translated directly means,"I have mushrooms in my ear" so that's pretty cool! I called the mission nurse and told her the news and she told me what medicine to buy at the pharmacy so I bought that too and hopefully the infection goes away within a week. The overall cost was 5 dollars. Not to bad ha ha!!! 

Other news this week. We have an investigator who needs to go to church one more time and receive a couple lessons and she should be baptized, hopefully her little brother will follow her example too. He receives the lessons but won't attend church with her. We also have a lot of good potentials to work with lately.  We get lots of potentials and new investigators but we never teach them more than once or twice.  

Me and my comp have been getting along quite well lately. My Spanish is really improving and he really likes that. We can actually communicate quite well. He teaches me things not to say and I try to remember everything that he says. Its an okay trade off. Last night we cleaned our little house. it looks so good!! probably the cleanest it has ever been. We mopped everything, no more moldy shower or bathroom floor as well as no more mud in our other room. Not a whole lot to clean in our single little room but at least it is clean now. 

Today we played basketball and four square, I haven't played soccer in 3 weeks. kinda sad about that actually. we ate lunch with another set of elders. he made food from El Salvador, super good!! It was like tortilla pancakes with cheese and meat in them. pretty great. 

So the only thing I don't eat is the tomatoes in our cabbage salad. We eat a ton of cabbage and my comp doesn't like pork and beans which I feel is very specific to not like but other than that we both eat everything. Like this week we ate a soup that had a whole fish in it, like head, tail, skin and bones. Not a small fish either. like the size of a trout when we go fishing. It was actually a really decent soup, the bones in the fish suck but it was decent tasting. 

For laundry we just drop our clothes off to the members that do everything for us. They are super cool, they do our laundry and feed us whenever we need food and they live like a half mile away. Pretty close in our area!  We supply the soap and Clorox, and we serve them in their home all the time so it's a nice trade off.  So they are parents who are like 55-ish, they have 4 kids, their kids have kids. Overall like 10 people are there like all the time. Its like grandma Margarets house, tons of people there all the time but only the parents live there. 

And yeah that was our week. pretty loaded with lessons and finding new people to teach. overall pretty fun as well!!

Love you!! 

Jayden

Week 14 (August 15, 2016)

Well I'm officially 3 months in. I thought that I would be better at Spanish by this point but I guess it is pretty hard to learn a new language. My Spanish is starting to get better tho. During our zone conference with our mission president I could understand all of the Spanish he was saying. It was pretty good. I am also starting to pick up on the local accent, its pretty hard but I can find words that the locals say and sometimes fit them into a sentence that actually makes sense. Our mission president is super cool, he is from Florida. He has the highest wishes for our mission. Panama is the hardest baptizing mission in central america. The people here have everything they want already so it is hard to get them to see the light of the gospel and the blessings that come from it. The people here just don't have the will to do anything. Makes things hard. 

It rained quite a bit this week so we weren't able to teach a whole lot. And it isn't worth using an umbrella here the rain is just to much. 

Our lights in our apartment went out this week, so we haven't had lights for the last two days.  The owner says he will fix it but we aren't really sure what the problem with the lights are so it could take a bit to fix. 

Yeah that's like it for the week. Pretty boring compared to the other weeks but I guess that's what happens when all it does is rain. 

Dad, our apartment is the worst that I have seen. we have 2 people with houses in our district, another set of elders in our district have a super nice apartment and we have a tiny one room thing. We do have a fridge, it is extremely small and we did buy a new stove, but no oven and no microwave. Our toilet also doesn't flush so we have to use a jug and pour water in it to make it flush. sometimes its a little harder than it sounds. we also have more mice in our apartment.  The struggle, I will set more traps tonight to take care of them. 

Tell Kayla I am way proud of her and that when I get home we can totally do tons of triathlons together because that has always been my dream to do one. 

I have a flash light that we use when its dark. We get home at around 9:30pm every night so we just shower and go to sleep then it gets light at like 7 in the morning so the light isn't to big a deal.  It is just a bit hard to read in the morning, our window on our house is very small and faces another house so we don't get much light. 

Have a great week.
Love you,
Jayden

Week 13 (August 08, 2016)

This young lady just finished her mission at Salt Lake Temple Square and went home to Panama.  She took a care package back to Jayden for us,  He is serving in her ward.  It was nice to meet her and her mother before she went home. (Gary)

Well this week has been pretty good, we had changes. We have a new Zone leader. Hes a gringo which is pretty great. Our new zone is pretty boring though. They took all of the cool people out of our zone, and the other cool person, Elder D. died. Dying just means you finished your mission.  So now our zone is very boring. We only played soccer today for like 20 minutes unlike the usual 2 hours. Although I was able to score 2 goals in that short time. Not to bad for a gringo!

The mission work this week went pretty good. We had a bunch of lessons and found 7 new investigators. We had 4 investigators attend church yesterday and that isn’t including our 2 regulars who had something going on yesterday. As for baptisms we should have some this change. We have a 3 baptismal dates with our investigators, although I know one of them isn’t going to happen. She isn’t married and we didn’t know that before asking her to be baptized. I honestly couldn’t even believe that she said yes to being baptized. It was only our second time teaching her and the first time we taught her we didn’t really teach much, We only found out who she was and assessed the needs in her life, which we didn’t do very well at because one of her needs is to be married.

Other things that have happened this week:

•  I was wondering why I haven’t seen any spiders here. I’ve heard there were lots here and they were big but I didn’t ever see anything. So this week I’m getting ready for bed and look down and see a spider crawl under the door darting across the floor. It was decent sized, about the size of the biggest spiders we have in Utah. No big deal though, I grab my shoe and smashed it. I figure that the reason that we don’t have any small spiders is because the lizards that are everywhere and super fast are eating them all, and this spider was big enough and fast enough to get away. So the next day we are in a member´s house and I look over on the wall and there is a freaking gigantic spider. It was easily the size of my palm. It was a greenish grey color and it was pretty fat. I figure that this spider was alive because it has been eating the lizards. The people living there hit it with a broom but the spider just took the hit like a champion and ran down the wall to the floor, then ran into the bathroom where my comp had to step on it twice to kill it. Not exaggerating that story at all. That spider was absolutely massive!!!
• On Saturday we presented service to one of our investigators. We mowed their lawn. And by mowed their lawn I mean we hacked at it with machetes for 2 hours just cutting the grass. It was very ineffective and I loved it. It is so much worse than just mowing the lawn. 
• On Sunday at church I saw the family of Hermana R. and her daughter showed me the picture of you all. I think it is so cool that you were able to meet someone from my mission! Thanks so much for the package! I'm not really sure when to open your little letter because it seems like everyday I can feel everyone of those emotions. I just treat the mission like baseball. If you strike out your first at bat you still get to bat the second time.  It pretty fun to make baseball comparisons tho. I miss baseball so much. 
• I got my package from Sister R. this morning which I'm sure you know! Thank you so much! I'm so glad that you could get to meet her, even with the horrible google translate. Your emails to her translated very well. Her emails in Spanish made sense to me I'm not sure why the translation is so bad the other way. good thing you figured out how to get in touch. and good thing her daughter speaks English! Her daughter is super cool. She said that she wants to help us as a member and be apart of our lessons which is super cool because lessons with a member present are one of the best ways for investigators to feel the spirit, which is the way for conversion to happen. 
• On Fast Sunday me and my companion fasted, I chewed gum to not feel super hungry. Everyone told me it wasn't fasting because of the gum.  They said it was the sugar in the gum. I've never heard that before in my life. 
• During church on Sunday there was a crazy huge thunderstorm. And the thunderstorms here are insane.  Every time the thunder cracked the person bearing their testimony had to wait for it to stop before they could continue.  There was one point were the lightning was so close I could here it sizzle after it hit and the thunder followed it almost at the same time, it was crazy!! 
• Remember that ear infection I had in the MTC? I still have something wrong with my ear. It still hurts and pops all the time. I think I need to get it checked again. 
• The bishop here wants me to teach him English. He is always talking to me in broken English, which is harder to understand than Spanish, and always asks me how to say things. My comp has been the same way lately. He asks me how to say things in English, and when I tell him he remembers what I say every time. He knows lots of English sayings like "you want take a shower" or "I need to use the bathroom" or "I have hungry" and "Are you okay" He says those all the time but I tried to say one of them to him once and he had no idea what was happening. Lots of people here try to talk English and it is so hard to understand them. and they always want me to speak English to them but they don't understand me so usually I stick to my broken Spanish. 
• And last but not least I want to say thanks for that gringo package you sent me. the things in it are really useful. Melatonin in there is the greatest. I use the lotion as shaving cream because shaving cream here is ridiculously expensive.  The cheapest they have is 4 dollars for the stuff we can buy at the dollar store. I also still have the candy from it, I eat like one a day. and the water bottle is very useful for making chicha. which here means juice and any other Spanish country means alcohol. fun fact. 

Anyways that's it for the week. pretty fun and pretty packed with lots of work!!   Love you, Jayden

Week 12 (July 31, 2016)

Wow what a week. Changes are tomorrow and I'm fairly sure I wont be changed, which is fine. We have a few investigators we are working with so it will be good to see what we can make of that. We had another lesson with our investigator from Florida, he was born in Florida but grew up in LA. He was in prison for 22 years. He now works in panama telling people how to manage their money. which is a good job and he makes good money but he says he prefers to live with his people, which really just means he likes all of his gang member friends that live near him. He believes in Joseph Smith and said he wants to read the Book of Mormon again. He also told us he believes that Satan gave Moses the 10 commandments which doesn't really make sense to me but whatever. 

We have 2 new investigators as well. We taught them lesson one and they are excited to learn more. Turns out we taught one of their daughters before and randomly contacted her mom and set up a lesson having no idea what was going on. pretty cool. 

We had two investigators show up to church, they live together but aren't married which is the only thing holding them back from baptism tough, but they seem happy to be married. the husband just needs a divorce first, which is pretty hard in panama. 

I got a good computer today as well so here are a few pictures of things. I eat these banana things here. they are so good! i made them in our tiny crap house, which I kind of love now. I also make a ton of oatmeal here, like at least once a day. usually for dinner. 

Also attached is a photo of my scriptures. I taped a picture of the family on the cover. I like having it there. Reminds me why I'm here, to help people have eternal families just like we can have. Its pretty great! 

One night we had a sleepover for our meeting in that area the next morning. We played a game of cards called chancho. its like spoons but the last person to grab a spoon gets a letter. First person to spell chancho loses. So I lost one of the games we played and had to drink a smoothie. Here are the contents: vinegar, mango, peanut butter, protein powder, moldy rice, ketchup, sour cream, noni (a fruit here that tastes absolutely horrible and clears out your system), water, milk, and I believe there was some sort of old meat in there. but yeah it did come out my nose. 

That's all this week, love you all.

Jayden